Date and location

GSK- logo coming

Patient participation in Melanoma clinical research

28th- 30th March 2014 in Brussels

joint M-icab/ ESO conference

Nearly 60 Melaoma patients from 11 European countries gathered last weekend in Brussels to discuss with clinicians and representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, the EMA and CASMI how to explore innovative trial concepts such as adaptive licensing to ensure that clinical trials fullfill patients' needs.

Considering the recent EMA call for adaptive licensing pilots, the conference was extremely timely and Saturday's discussion round involving all stakeholders clearly showed the awareness of the need of new concepts for clinical trials.

The afternoon session show-cased concrete examples of already existing novel approaches to the challenges of clinical trials, their design and access to them.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to advocacy and effectively represented the launch of the Melanoma European Network Europe (MPNE) which will replace m-icab in the future. Advocates identified the need for reliable information, in particular in the context of clinical trials, as top priority for the nearer future.

Action points for the MPNE are:

establishing MPNE as an independent foundation

providing a forum for Melanoma patient advocates to interact and collaborate across Europe

providing support for the establishment of a Melanoma patient advocate network in Romania, including documentation of 'lessons learned' to develop a transferable tool

patient advocacy toolkit

MPNE conference 2015

Background

Recent unprecedented progress in melanoma therapies provide for the first time hope for patients in advanced stages of the disease. However, navigating a fast-evolving treatment landscape presents a real challenge, not only for patients but also their advocates.With novel treatments in development, the most promising agents are often only accessible in a clinical trial setting. For this reason, access to and participation in clinical studies strongly shape the reality for stage 4 and increasingly, also stage 3 melanoma patients.

The current logistical, ethical and humane challenges to melanoma patients’ enrolment in clinical trials now appeal for a change of paradigm in the design and conduct of these trials.